Frank Kelly Founder & Managing Partner Fulcrum Macro Advisors
2024 Bank Investment & Economic Outlook Conference Nebraska Bankers Association Lincoln, Nebraska November 7, 2024
Let’s
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• The Re-Wiring of Globalization - Trade tensions between China and the US/EU/Indo Pacific has triggered a strong embrace of Industrial Policy among major free market nations for the sake of “national economic security” (e.g., CHIPS Act in the US and EU, competition for critical mineral assets, etc.).
• Demographics are changing everything - India is now the largest population in the world as China begins to rapidly shrink. Africa is the fastest growing region of the world. Japan and many EU nations are seeing significant long-term shrinkage of their populations but are seeking to make up for it with immigration – as is the US.
• The New Multipolar World: The New Axis of Evil Has Arrived –Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the tipping point. Now Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and to some degree China are aligned in supporting each other militarily and economically.
• Commodities Are A Driving Force in Geopolitical Shifts – We are in something of a new age where the global and regional battle for access to commodities – especially critical minerals, agricultural, water, etc. – are driving what we could consider new Cold Wars - as well as real wars. And financial markets are major players in in this Cold War.
IMF, European Council on Foreign Relations
Election Year: 48 percent of World Population is Voting in 78+ Elections in 2024
The Global Demographic Roller Coaster: Africa is Booming, India is Growing, the US is Steady, China is in Free Fall
Source: Deutsche Bank, World Bank
• The 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress in 2022 granted President Xi Jinping an unprecedented third term. In his acceptance speech, Xi’s focus was “Security.” He said the word 96 times. – But he was talking as much about internal security as external security.
• The Taiwan Invasion Risk: Worrisome but not likely in the next three-to-five years. US assessment: An invasion would be Xi’s “last, worst choice.”
• A major casualty of Xi’s policies is the impact on the regional and global markets investing in China: Foreign Direct Investment has nosedived. And there is less transparency overall, especially of key economic data. This has been the trend under Xi for the last 12 years and is continuing. Add to that Chinese exports to the West are decreasing.
• Watch the youth unemployment rate: Officially, it is at 21.3 percent. The real number is likely close to 30 percent and may be trending toward 40 percent. But we will never know because Beijing just suspended all reporting of that data.
By order of comparison, by 2100 India is expected to have a population of 1.5 billion and the US is expected to have a population of 370 million.
China’s Standing Committee just raised the retirement age from 60 to 63 for men and 55 to 58 for women over next 15 years to “expand” the workforce.
Source: Gallup, Financial
• India is expected to be the fastest growing economy in 2024, experiencing 7.2 percent growth so far in 2022-2023. Its population is now larger than China’s, with the average age being 33 years old.
• We are beginning to see a serious outflow of manufacturing from China with a substantial amount of it moving to India. The reasons for going to India?
➢ Low labor costs
➢ Government support/subsidies
➢ Infrastructure
➢ Technology
➢ Education
➢ Rule of Law
➢ Not Communist…
• India is in a growing relationship with the US being driven personally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has built strong relations with both Vice President Harris and former President Trump.
• Modi is also building key Indo-Pacific allies (Japan, South Korea, Australia, Philippines) economically and militarily to counter China.
• The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) is potentially the groundwork for a future mutual security/trade alliance between India, Australia, Japan, and the US.
Sources: Reuters, Indian Ministry of Statistics
Source: Deutsche Bank
• Long seen as “the world’s factory,” China’s economic transformation/regression is allowing other nations to take manufacturing capacity.
• This is being strongly – but quietly - encouraged by the US and other free market democracies (EU, India, Australia, Japan, South Korea). All in effort to “de-risk,” securing supply chains and encourage democratic development and security.
• The CHIPS Act allows the US to ”explore” opportunities to encourage mutual R&D with foreign allies. Note the US recently announced accessed the CHIPS International Technology Security and Innovation Fund to work with India on developing semiconductor capabilities in India.
• Who are the other countries to watch for similar efforts?
- Vietnam - Mexico - Panama
- India - Malaysia - Costa Rica
- Singapore - Philippines - Kenya
- South Korea - Indonesia - Greater Africa
Sources: McKinsey, US State Department
• The grotesque attack on Israeli citizens on October 7 and Iran’s unprecedented recent attack on Israel has changed the political and military reality in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. What should we expect going forward?
➢ Israel: The overarching question has been what is Israel’s Gaza strategy? Occupation? Returning to a walled-off Gaza? And what the South Lebanon/Hezbollah strategy? There has been deep discontent among Israelis toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A recent poll showed 71 percent of Israelis think he should step down now and more than half want elections this fall.
➢ Iran: Iran seems to not want further direct engagement – but support just enough action to degrade Israel’s military and encourage social unrest. Iran is too fragile internally and have too much to lose (control of Southern Lebanon and potential further internal unrest). Most of all, they cannot afford to lose their oil revenues.
➢ Other Middle Eastern Countries: Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and other Arab nations do not want any part of it – even to send peacekeeping troops.
Source: Congressional Research Service; the Times of Israel
• Moscow’s strategy is now clear: A long war of attrition no matter the cost in men and material (which have been staggering in numbers – Russia has lost more than 600,000 men). It is now reaching out to North Korea for mercenary’s – 10,000 North Koren troops are now in Kursk.
• Ukraine had an advantage of morale, quality of equipment (which they are running out of), and operational/tactical capability. But that is weakening rapidly due to a lack of continuous Western aid. They have suffered horrific losses of men (and are now considering mobilizing women to fight).
• What do the US and EU do going forward? There is a growing resistance to endless military and financial aid is growing. Will the West tap out before Ukraine? Or will they allow Ukraine to begin ramping up attacks on Russia itself?
• What is the risk of Russian aggression against Poland, The Baltic nations, Georgia, Moldovia, etc.?
• President Biden, UK Prime Minister Starmer, and other NATO member state are close to approving the supply to and use of long-range missiles (“Storm Shadows”) by Ukraine.
• The missiles, which can strike 155 miles inside Russia, could effectively take-out Russian Air Force facilities, supply depots, Russian reserve units, and critical infrastructure. In effect, coupled with the Western supply of F-16 fighters, could significantly change the situation on the ground in Ukraine.
• But Russian President Putin says allowing Ukraine use such missiles would mean “the West is directly at war with Russia.” That is a thinly veiled threat that could be acted on in a number of ways including:
• Escalating clandestine attacks on NATO facilities and troops in Europe.
• Giving Houthi forces in Yemen more advanced/longer-range missiles to strike shipping.
• Disabling Asymmetric Attacks: Disabling satellites, cutting critical undersea communication pipelines, massive cyberattacks on Western infrastructure, etc.
Source: NBC News, New York Tines, Aviation Week 16
• North Korea – Increasingly desperate in the wake of COVID which killed an estimated 2 -3 million people (out of a population of 25 million). North Korea is now a major producer of Russian ammunition – which means, they are exporting weapons they would use to threaten the South (minimizing any war threats that Kim Jong-Un might currently be making).
• Crisis-Induced Mass Migration – If food security issues worsen (the dissolution of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, famines in Africa and Middle East), experts worry we will see new waves of mass-migration into Europe. We are already seeing the impact in recent European elections.
• Emerging Market Debt – There are numerous emerging market countries deeply indebted to China as part of the Belt & Road Initiative (e.g., Sri Lanka, Ghana, Pakistan, etc.) and face defaulting on payment (China has spent more than $250 billion in 2023 already in bail-outs).
• Russian/Iranian/North Korean/Chinese/Cuban/Venezuelan Asymmetrical WarfareUnderwater communications sabotage, satellite sabotage, denigrating/damaging the Ukrainian electrical grid or even Europe’s grids, tactical nuclear or chemical or biological attacks in Ukraine (doubtful/unlikely) cyber attacks, Sabotage of global food supply channels, social media manipulation and use of AI-created “Deep Fakes” going into the 2024 elections (this is a major risk we all must be prepared for as we get closer to November).
Sources: the Guardian; Reuters; American Economic Association; Office of the Director of National Intelligence
17
Challenging Now. But A
Strong and Consistent Tailwind is Starting to Blow
Source: Gallup Poll August 30,
• Money market assets under management are now at record levels.
• But why? Two possible reasons: Investors are taking a wait & see approach to the elections, what the Fed is going to do, and where the economy is going.
• Historically, outflows start 12 months after first cut and get deployed elsewhere.
• While markets are seeing a clearer path for rate policy – and we are likely to see another 25-basis point cut this week - they have not focused on the future make-up of the Federal Reserve Board.
• Jay Powell’s term as Chair ends May 15, 2026. Former President Trump has made clear he will not re-nominate Powell and has said his shortlist includes Art Laufer, former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Kevin Hassett, and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.
• But markets have not taken much note of the fact that then-Senator Kamala Harris strongly opposed Powell’s nomination as Fed Chair in 2018, joining seven Progressive Democrats in voting against him.
• What does that mean between now and then? We believe Powell will be ready to leave by 2026, having guided rates downs without causing pain to the economy. His “invisible earmuffs” are on and the risk of politicization of Fed policy is non-existent.
• One other Fed Governor’s seat opens up in 2026: Fed Governor Adriana Kugler’s term ends on January 31, 2026.
• Semiconductor production in the US is the one area where bipartisanship presides in Washington all in the name of “national economic security.”
• The Biden Administration and Congress took up this challenge in 2022 by passing the CHIPS Act which grants close to $100 billion in federal funding on building up the chip industry. Three examples:
➢ Intel broke ground on a new $20 billion facility in Columbus, Ohio and $20 billion plant in Arizona.
➢ Micron broke ground on a $15 billion expansion in Boise, Idaho and announced a new $100 billion build-out over 20 years in New York – the largest in the world.
➢ Samsung was just awarded more than $6 billion to build new semiconductor facilities in Austin, Texas.
• Combine this with the $550 billion funding from the Infrastructure bill also passed in 2022, and it is a potential boom for numerous sectors, particularly for commercial real estate, residential real estate, etc.
• Who else qualifies under CHIPS? The Pharma industry?
• What are the chances of CHIPS 2.0?
• More than $479 billion of infrastructure and clean-energy spending is being pumped into the economy due to Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
• A large number of these investments are going into Red States – which means, even if Biden loses in November, it will make repealing these two laws hard to do.
• “As much as some Republicans have criticized Biden’s economic programs, those [Republican] governors aren’t going to want to see the investments… reversed.”
– US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
Sources: The White House, Axios 24
Less Than 2 Percent of Available CHIPS Funding Has Been Awarded and Only 40 Percent of the Infrastructure Bill Funding Has Been Awarded
And 55 Percent of the Inflation Reduction Act Funding Has Yet To Be Spent
• The US electrical grid is facing unprecedented new demands. Wind, Solar, Crypto Currency, Artificial Intelligence are putting extraordinary demands on the system. In short, there are enough power lines, and many existing lines need to be replaced.
• But the grid is fragmented and has created “the interconnection queue” – a long line of projects waiting to get connected. How much? 1,5000 gigawatts, roughly 1/3 of all power currently produced in the US.
• In essence, there are three overarching systems: One in the East, one in the West, and one in Texas.
• And within these three systems are a patchwork of operators who compete – making it harder to build long-distance lines to transport wind and solar generated energy.
• Replacing existing copper wiring with carbon fiber wrapped in aluminum would allow a doubling of the amount of power to be pushed through the system.
Source: Bloomberg; New York Times, USEIA, Washington Post
As the future of EVs is debated and all that the IRA and Infrastructure bill is directed to spend, Congress has some questions and is going to hold tough hearings this year:
• Two years after President Biden vowed to spend $7.5 billion (via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) to build 500,000 charging stations by 2030, a grand total of seven stations offering 38 charging spots in four states have been built (so far, only in New York, Hawaii, Ohio, Pennsylvania). Why and where has the money been spent?
• The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR): Where are we in refilling it and when will it get done? President Biden tapped the SPR in 2022 in an effort to lower gas prices. But it has not been refilled. To do so would require the Department of Energy to buy one million barrels a day. DoE is buying one million a week . Why? One million a day would seriously spike the price of oil. But isn’t there any other way?
• The EPA’s new Emissions Standards: How Will the US possibly meet the the Biden Administration’s 2032 EV requirements?
Sources: US Department of Energy, Washington Post, CNBC 28
For the first time in 60 years, US energy production is now higher than US energy consumption.
Source: Apollo Management, US Energy Information Agency
Barron’s: “The Fed Depends on Increasingly Questionable Data. That’s a Problem.”
“The response rates for commodities and services portions of the consumer price index were down roughly 10 percentage points in January from pre-pandemic levels….Another source of concern is the seasonal adjust to smooth modeling that the agency performs to smooth data series and provide more useful comparisons between observation periods.”– Barron’s Magazine
➢ This is why the Federal Reserve is talking now about the “totality” of the data it seeks to examine.
There is no clear explanation as to why businesses are not participating as robustly as they have done in past critical federal economic government surveys. Which Surveys are seeing the worst response rates?
Source: Labor Department; Wall Street Journal
• One thing you can always count on in an election year in Washington: As Congress increasingly grinds to a halt in passing legislation, regulators ramp up their regulatory work stream.
• The Supreme Court just passed down the highlycontentious Chevron Decision. This is going to have an enormous impact on federal regulation of all sorts going forward and likely lead to the repealing of a number of federal regulations.
• The Federal Reserve, the SEC, CFTC, OCC, CFTC, NCUA, and other financial regulators are all on the hot seat.
• But the FDA, FERC, and every other non-financial regulator is sharing that hot-seat. Watch the cascade of federal lawsuits from interest groups seeking to pull out regulations in place for years.
States with Senate seats up for election
- Who is up for election?
➢ The President and Vice President
➢ 435 Members of the House of Representatives
➢ 33 Members of the US Senate
➢ 11 Governors and Lieutenant Governors
➢ 10 State Attorney Generals
➢ 86 State legislatures in 44 states plus 8 legislative chambers in US Territories
➢ 22 major city mayors
➢ Hundreds of state and local judges
• January 25, 2025 – The new President and Vice President and all members of the new Congress are sworn into office.
States with Governor seats up for election
➢ Vice President Harris underperformed President Biden’s 2020 margins in nearly every single county nationwide.
➢ All major exit polls showed Trump dominated on two key issues: The economy and immigration.
➢ 75 percent of voters believe the country is headed in a negative direction, of which 60 percent voted for Trump.
➢ In Michigan and Wisconsin, Trump increased his support by 5 points with voters under the age of 45 versus four years ago.
➢ White suburban women voted 51– 47 for Trump.
➢ 45 percent of Latino voters voted for Trump, up from 33 percent in 2020.
➢ 21 percent of African American men voted for Trump, up from 8 percent in 2020.
Republicans Take the Senate With At Least a 5 Seat Pick up and Possibly An 8 Seat Pick-Up
Source: Tiber Creek Group
• President-elect Trump keenly knows he is a Lame-Duck President. The clock is ticking and to be successful, he has to move fast – very fast. He also knows Democrats will not give him ANY “Honeymoon” time coming into office.
• Look for Trump to announce his cabinet and sub-cabinet nominations in the coming two weeks. Taking advantage of the large Senate majority, he will look to get as many confirmed as fast as possible once.
• Trump has done a LOT of work over the last year looking at candidates for his cabinet and subcabinet. He and his team have vetted many of them and has them ready for nomination and confirmation hearings (which can often burn up weeks in preparation).
• Expect the Trump Transition Team to request the resignation – immediately – of all major regulators and Biden political appointees.
• Additionally, there will be an enormous amount of Executive Orders and legislative proposals pushed out on January 20th on a level we likely have never seen in previous newly sworn in presidential administrations.
• We see no chance of major tax legislation at the federal level for the remainder of 2024 (including a legislative effort that is ongoing in the Senate to pass a small corporate tax package of “tax extenders”).
• But as soon as the election is over with, tax reform will be the top legislative priority of the new Congress and the White House. Much of the Trump 2017 tax provisions “sunset” at the end of 2025.
• For now, we are experiencing the “War of the White Papers” Tax advocacy groups, think tanks, political groups all laying out ideas and analysis for tax reform after the 2024 elections. It is a lot to take in but important to pay attention to because this is where “new” tax ideas and proposals germinate.
• House Republicans are meeting next week to decide the leadership for 2025-2026. Will Speaker Michael Johnson (R-LA) survive a likely challenge?
• Who will run the major committees dealing with tax, banking, and commerce?
• And will Congress pass the budget or just punt it into 2025 and let the new Congress deal with it? (Yes, they will)
Frank is the Founder and Managing Partner of Fulcrum Macro Advisors LLC. He has worked as a senior executive on Wall Street for over 30 years, most recently at Deutsch Bank. Prior to this, he held senior positions at Charles Schwab & Co., and Merrill Lynch where he was Chief of Staff and Global Head of Marketing.
At Deutsche Bank, Frank served as Global Coordinator for Government and Public Affairs. He was also the Bank’s first Chief Political Strategist, advising clients on geopolitical and domestic policy issues.
Prior to joining the financial services sector, Frank was Chief Spokesman and Senior Policy Advisor to the Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Previous to this, Frank served at the US Department of Justice in the Office of Policy Development where he focused on international and national security issues. He began his career as a Writer for President Ronald Reagan, going on to serve as the Deputy Associate Director of the Office of Political Affairs. He remained at the White House to serve as a Writer for President G. H. Bush.
He is also a Senior Advisor to The Scowcroft Group, a Washington DC global business advisory firm with an emphasis on emerging markets. He is also a Senior Associate in the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Frank additionally is a Lecturer at The Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business where he teaches on Business Intelligence.
Francis j. Kelly
Direct: +1-202-744-5706
Email: fkelly@fulcrummacro.com www.fulcrummacro.com
Frank is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the American Council on Germany and American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Codespa America and as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Jerome Lejeune Foundation of America.
He resides outside Washington DC in Great Falls, Virginia with his wife, Maura, on their working farm, Open Door Farm.
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